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Oculus Rift Guillotine Simulation

Posted by Unknown on from the death-wish dept.

An anonymous reader tipped us to news of an interesting hack for the Oculus Rift: a simulation of being beheaded by a Guillotine. Thrown together in a couple of days at the Exile Code Jam, the simulation lets you... "look around to see the blade above, the crowd of onlookers around them, and the executioner who signals the blade be dropped. It also enhances the experience when someone watches the blade falling on a nearby screen and taps the user on the back of the neck at the time of impact." Just a bit morbid. There's a video of people "playing" (nsfw language in a few reactions to being virtually beheaded).

28 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. It's cool and all, by centipedes.in.my.vag · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...but it's nothing to lose your head over.

    --
    Only on /. can I lose karma with 2x "5, Funny" posts.
    1. Re:It's cool and all, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      You sure? Coz it's "cutting" edge.

    2. Re:It's cool and all, by Rizimar · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you guys keep making lame puns, I swear, heads are gunna roll!

    3. Re:It's cool and all, by ArsonSmith · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hardware on the cutting edge rarely is. This is not going to allow the Rift to get ahead of the game. The idea is all right, but the execution is all wrong.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    4. Re:It's cool and all, by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Funny

      I don't know... some of these puns are pretty sharp.

    5. Re:It's cool and all, by zwarte+piet · · Score: 2

      Blooddy rednecks...

    6. Re:It's cool and all, by Minupla · · Score: 3, Funny

      And really edgy!

      --
      On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
    7. Re:It's cool and all, by cigawoot · · Score: 2

      Then its hilarious!

  2. No monitor required. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The simulation runs headless.

  3. There are lots of things I'd like see via OR by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    This isn't one of them, though.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  4. My name is Robespierre by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    And I am imagining a Beowulf cluster of these.

  5. Re:Funny to tap them on the neck by femtobyte · · Score: 4, Funny

    Even funnier if they're still around for the aftermath of the joke. Don't decapitate --- just a precise shot of paralytic to the top of the spinal cord, followed by a photorealistic rendering (through the goggles) of the goggles being removed... to reveal the severed-head's view of the "real world" simulation room. Dim lights to black; leave them there to contemplate.

  6. Re:put it on death row and people may not want to by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Funny

    put it on death row and people may not want to end up there.

    As opposed to now, where people are clamoring to get in?

    --


    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  7. Laughter and emotional response by SpectreBlofeld · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I find it fascinating that the universal response of the 'victims' in the video is laughter. They're not laughing because anything is particularly funny. It's the sort of laughter that is created by an inappropriate joke or a stressful situation that is avoided.

    This speaks to the quality and efficacy of the simulation - it elevates stress enough that it causes participants to need to 'laugh it off'.

    This leads me to consider the possibility of use of simulations like this ones to test for things like psychopathy. A psychopath will remain calm and unaffected by things that will trigger stress response in typical individuals. I know this is a dicey road to go down in terms of law enforcement and personal rights, but it could be a useful tool for psychologists.

    In writing this, my mind went to the Voight-Kampff test in 'Blade Runner'. Perhaps, instead of an inquisitor reading off questions, a potential psychopath/replicant plays out a VR simulation of a tortoise stranded on its back...

    1. Re:Laughter and emotional response by femtobyte · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So, when does a "first person shooter" become too "first person"? In the past, it's been obvious that video game players stomping on turtles and blowing away enemies on a tiny computer screen can easily tell the difference between real life and game realities --- whatever keyboard-mashing reflexes they develop won't correspond to real-world actions. But, is there some point when game realism becomes so immersive that deep physiological responses to your virtual character's fate are invoked, and the human brain stops clearly drawing the line between reality inside and outside the computer world? When interaction with game opponents is done through the same whole-body movements, with realistic visual/sensitive feedback, as real-world actions? At the subconscious level (which, according to numerous fMRI studies, often decides actions before the conscious mind rationalizes choices), can we still distinguish between virtual and real worlds once the technology for fully realistic virtual interactions catches up? Will the crippling PTSD experienced by soldiers involved in real combat start to show up among early adopters of overly realistic simulations?

    2. Re:Laughter and emotional response by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I somewhat disagree. I think the laughter is more social, in response to the absurdity of the victim's own reaction. No laughter would occur in the absence of observers. The stress would still occur, but the (already synthetic and awkward) laughter would have to be emulated.

      It's the same as any other reaction to a prank of shock. Note that the most prominent reactions were when the user was being tapped. Other demographics besides highly social youths would probably not react the same way; plenty of older or more self-important people may simply be bewildered or get mad.

      And, at any rate, it's such a glaringly weird facet of human behaviour that any seasoned psychopath should learn to emulate it quickly!

      --
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    3. Re:Laughter and emotional response by gl4ss · · Score: 2

      well.. when can you tell the difference between reading real news and reading a novel? this wouldn't work for testing psychopathy.. just for testing how people happen to react in a simulation they know there's nothing to do in it except watch the film go by.

      the ptsd gamers need to worry in near decades is just EA fucking up some franchises even more.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    4. Re:Laughter and emotional response by zwarte+piet · · Score: 2

      Yes, you've been playing in such a game for a few decades now...

    5. Re: Laughter and emotional response by Anonymatt · · Score: 2

      We laugh after stuff like this (tripping on the sidewalk) to let people know everything is okay.

    6. Re:Laughter and emotional response by operagost · · Score: 2

      It only really disturbed me in SOF when I blew off a guy's leg, then his head... and his corpse remained standing, headless, balancing on one leg.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
  8. Real victims by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It must be pretty awful do die like that. I cannot imagine instant death would occur, there must be a few seconds or more after your head is chopped off until you lose consciousness. Its not like being shot through the brain. They say Hearing is the last to go, so you can hear the reaction of the crowd as you die. ;-(

  9. Re:Funny to tap them on the neck by femtobyte · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hey, I'm not a trained professional in maximizing human suffering. You can't expect my glib internet responses to hit on the efficient solutions that real experts in extreme cruelty know. The CIA has undoubtedly dedicated far more time and diligent research to causing unimaginable suffering than I have.

  10. So, does the mind makes it real? by Requiem18th · · Score: 2

    I always though that was a stupid idea.

    --
    But... the future refused to change.
  11. Congratulations, folks... by RedBear · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Congratulations, folks... And welcome to the Future!

    We had the era of paintings, then the era of photographs, then the era of moving pictures, then the "talkies" and (gasp!) colorized films, then direct-to-video home porn rental, and now we are entering the era of the "feelies".

    And of course with each new era we have a lovely renewed bout of public "moral outrage" over the increased stimulation the viewer receives with each new technology, and how it contributes to moral depravity that will destroy our nation if it isn't stopped!

    During the coming decade or so we will begin to hear whispers, then breaking news stories, and finally public outcry, hysteria and demands that the government "do something" about all this simulated violence and suicide our children are partaking in, before we tragically lose an entire generation to the "new drug" of Virtual Experiences.

    Brace yourselves, folks.

    1. Re:Congratulations, folks... by abies · · Score: 2

      There is small difference. I don't think that futurists of 18th century were writing about passive societies being entrapped by looking at photographs of real world - but SF writers from half century ago were warning about civilizations stagnating because of VR addiction. Not Oculus Rift VR, but 'real' VR - but question is, how far the magic barrier is.

      We already have perfect sound simulation. With Rift, we are getting a lot closer to have good enough visual simulation. Taste probably doesn't matter, smell can be solved it if ever becomes a major obstacle. Only things left is full-body tacticle feedback (including temperature), muscle/motor capture in unrestricted environment and gravity/vestibular system interaction. I'm in no way saying these are simple things to do - but I could imagine, in 20 years or so, somebody suspended in some kind of non-viscous liquid, attached to rotating frame, with full-body suit simulating touch feedback, with motion capture being done by monitoring nerves (while being partially paralysed thanks to some chemicals) with vestibular system being stimulated by some kind of ultrasound device (this one was already tried). Expensive like hell, but easier than flying cars probably...

    2. Re:Congratulations, folks... by Junta · · Score: 2

      We already have perfect sound simulation

      Actually, we can *reproduce* sound 'good enough' but generating convincing sound from nothing is still beyond at least anything I know of. Speech synthesis, for example, is always obviously unnatural. We are still at a point where we have to assemble sounds from samples recorded or carefully engineered rather than spontaneously generated. Sure, we can do things like manipulate where the sound is being perceived as coming from, but we still require scripted voices and sound samples.

      Video is more complicated so we can't cheat as much.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  12. Reminds me of an exhibit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At the local science museum there used to be (there may still be) a mock guillotine that you could put your head in. There was a mirror at the bottom that allowed you to watch the cardboard blade slowly rise "above" you and then fall at a semi-random time once it got to the top. When it hit the bottom it blew a small jet of air at the back of your neck.

    The reactions I've seen watching people do that are pretty similar to this, so it's interesting to see how immersive it is despite having a display strapped to your head.

  13. Porn by ironman_one · · Score: 2

    Los me a bet. I bet that the first killer application for Oculus rift should have been porn.